Law Of The Warrior Poet VII – Constant Development Of Skills
This ties into the ABL or always be learning concept we talked about before. As a warrior poet you should always be moving forward, learning, and growing. Always becoming more. To put it in fiction terms your character arc shouldn’t be complete until you die. Every day you move forward and become more as a man, as an individual, as a member of a tribe, as a warrior poet. Every day you become a little bit more than you were the day before. Too many people think that once they leave school they can leave learning behind.
This is foolish for many different reasons. First off you don’t learn a lot at school so depending on what we call and education will never get you very far. Second true education happens outside the class. True learning is self-learning. You should seek out knowledge and new experience. The simplest way to sum this up is read books and try new things. Always have you radar up for new things to try and new things to experience. Always have a book that you’re reading.
Have skills that you’re working on developing. It doesn’t matter so much what those skills are but rather the process of attaining skill, of any sort, has benefits that we often take for granted. Maybe it’s a professional skill you want to develop or maybe it’s a hobby. Either is fine, just so long as you are always working to develop at least one skill, at least one aspect of yourself. Each and every day.
There are some skills I think everyone should learn. For example sales or soft skills, whatever you want to call it. If your not sure what skill to start with then start there sales, soft skills, people skills, whatever you want to call them they have a great value in every facet of your life. From business, no matter where you work or what job you to, to interpersonal relationships and beyond. Learning sales skills will never hurt you it can only help you.
But maybe there’s another path you want to take right now and that’s fine. Just have a path that you’re walking and a skill set that you are developing. Plenty of skills to pick from that we’ve talked about. If you’re not sure then start with sales, otherwise look to what interests you. What you have a passion for or an interest in. Don’t have to become a master at it, it’s okay to dabble here and there. So long as you always have a skill you’re working on and developing towards.
And remember the three phases or parts of learning. Modeling, which is seeing it done at a high level. instruction, which is learning about the best way to do it, and live practice which is doing the thing. All three are required for best and quickest skill development. So make sure that your learning includes all three.
Law Of The Warrior Poet VIII – Seeker Of Challenge
The warrior poet seeks out challenge, good suffering, and good pain. The warrior poet does not stay in his comfort zone but goes outside of it because he knows that were growth and development is. We talked about the difference between good suffering and bad suffering. Bad suffering is torture and pain inflicted on you without any benefit to it. Abuse, neglect, and the like. Good suffering is the kind that is ennobling and burns away what is base within you. The suffering of working hard for something whether it be knowledge, an athletic achievement, business, or simply the life that you want.
A warrior’s poet life consists of much suffering, good suffering. You must seek out challenge and discomfort. Seek out news vistas to explore and new areas of life to master. Get out of your comfort zone, you should feel fear, and then go and meet that fear, again and again and again until it becomes a habit. Scared of public speaking? Then join a public speaking group? Scared of getting it? Join a boxing gym. Scared of getting made fun of? Try stand up comedy. And so on and so forth.
Look at what you fear and go towards it. Your fear will show you the way forward. If life were a video game fear would be the little arrow pointing you where the next level is. Follow the fear to advance. Court challenge, court good suffering, court good pain. Stretch your mind, body, and spirit. Seek ways to challenge all three aspects of yourself. Seek to develop each one each and every day. Go out and find challenge, go out and face what makes you scared. Seek ways to challenge yourself.
Don’t fear failure, failure is the path to success. It is by failing but not quitting that we get where we need and want to go. How we develop some of the best things in life. To fear failure is to fear growth. I’m not saying try to fail. To to succeed with challenges and big worthy goals and you’ll naturally fail at times. Which is good, failure is a clue how to move forward, how to advance, how to grow. Seek it out, not through purposely failing but from attempting challenging things that naturally have the chance for failure built into them.
Seek out challenge, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Seek out good suffering and good pain. For suffering is the path to development.
The Warrior Poet’s Path
That’s all for today. We’re nearing the end and there’s still so much to cover. I look at this now and think how on earth did I think I could cover such an expansive topic with ten laws but we’ll try our best and no matter what, following what’s laid out will lead to development and a life worth living. Seek to develop skills every day, physically, mentally, and spiritually. And on top of that seek out challenges physically, mentally, and spiritually. That’s what leads to development, growth, and getting to where you want to be in life.
